Game 15 - Albert Odyssey

Albert Odyssey (アルバートオデッセイ)
Release Date: 3/5/1993
System: Super Famicom
Developer: Tokai Engineering
Publisher: Sunsoft

DATA 

1. Turn type: Player/enemy turn
2. Maps: Very large -- the entire world is one big map, with one additional map for underground.
3. Character customization: None
4. Character development: Standard XP/level system.
5. Party: 4 characters. There is some freedom to choose which characters to take along.
6. Equipment: Four slots
   
7. Game flow: See comments below.
   
8. Saving: In towns.
   
9. Death: Not permanent (you need to restore in towns or with items/spells).
   

IMPRESSIONS

This is my first game of 1993, and the first game on the Super Famicom. I have already played and reviewed this game on my other blog, so I will only give a brief summary here.


The most unusual feature of this game is an attempt to even more fully integrate RPG elements into the SRPG genre by completely removing the idea of separate maps or stages, and making the entire world map into one big stage. This is an innovation, but there's an obvious reason why few other game have gone this route -- it takes forever to go anywhere since you have to move everyone individually even if there are no monsters in the area. Exploring is tedious and makes you want to use a walkthrough to make sure you're heading in the right direction. Entering a town is needlessly complicated.


The other big problem I had with this game is that you never get any new powers or spells beyond your initial set, so the beginning and end of the game are basically the same.


As you can probably tell, I did not like this game very much. The story is also lackluster. I'm not looking forward to Albert Odyssey 2, because I'm not hopeful that they solved any of these issues with the first game.